The Prince and The Showgirl [DVD] [1957]

The story is little to write home about...The Prince Regent of an imaginary Ruritanian country meets a showgirl whilst in
London for the 1911 coronation of George V. Laurence Olivier is the Prince Regent and Marilyn Monroe is the showgirl he encounters.
Photographed by legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff who also worked on Black Narcissus (amongst many many others) The affair here is between Monroe and the camera. She has never been more lovingly photographed. At 30 years old she is at the peak of her amazing beauty. Her comic timing is pretty good too. In fact she blows Olivier off the screen. Others along for the ride include Dame Sybil Thorndike as the dotty Queen Dowager, Richard Wattis and Jeremy Spenser as the Young King. The sets are extremely plush and the production values are excellent. Monroe wears the same white evening dress throughout and did I mention how ravishing she is? I did! Okay well if you are a Monroe fan you need to see this film. It is not as Laugh out Loud funny as Some Like it Hot or as Raw as Bus Stop but it does have charm.

I cannot believe how wide of the mark are so many of the reviews for this highly entertaining and funny movie. I have watched it several times over the years, still watch it occasionally and am amazed that it continues to entertain and amuse - it just refuses to date.

The funny, sparkling script by Terence Rattigan is leavened with the yeast of telling social commentary, as relevant today as it is to the Edwardian setting. It is full of perceptive one-liners that still make us chuckle. The basic story of how a street-wise, but romantic young girl not only survives, but succeeds in the rarified class-conscious world of royalty and ossified convention is one that enchants us and has us rooting for her.

Visually, it is a feast of riotous colour - stunning interiors, beautiful women in gorgeous dresses and men in either impressive uniforms or the masculine elegance of Edwardian menswear. What's not to like? Jack Cardiff, the cinematographer, yet again demonstrates his unique painterly skill as the finest Technicolor camaraman ever. He displays Marilyn Monroe's beauty better than any other cinematographer has ever done.

The comments that Olivier's acting is "wooden" and that Monroe acts him off the screen are just ridiculous. Olivier is an actor, for heaven's sake, and is playing a Balkan prince of no charm and sombre character. The first five minutes alone - where he thanks the line of actors - is memorably funny with Olivier's subtle interpretation of a bored royal's public relations ritual. He brilliantly contrasts the prince's distant, embarrassed, response to forward yoicks to his attempts at flirtatious conversation with attractive young and not-so-young women. And the carriage scene, in which his ferocious demeanour melts into a wintry smile at the young, impressionable girl's evident excited enjoyment of the occasion is Olivier at his best. Watch his impeccable timing as he delivers his comic lines - it looks just so easy and natural, until we try to do it ourselves! Superb acting. This film also demonstrates that he was an excellent director, as good as any. The pacing, the characterisation, the way in which the story is played out to us, the precise timing of the many comic situation set-pieces, show directorial skills of the highest order.

Anyone who believes that Monroe could not act should be made to watch this movie. She clearly demonstrates here that she was a naturally talented actress with a particular skill for comedy. Unfortunately, in her personal life she was surrounded by hangers-on, some of whom had only their own interests at heart, and some who were plain nutters. Between them they destroyed her self-confidence and suppressed her own natural talent. Here, with first-class, sympathetic direction from Olivier, she was permitted to shine and show what she could do. She was no puppet, however. Her facial expressions and body language, throughout the film, display natural acting talent of a high order, far beyond anything that could be achieved by blind responses to a directorial Svengali. Watch her, for instance, during the Coronation scene, as the rituals of an Old World society begin to impress her New World instincts. The stories that Olivier was driven to the edge by her frustrating behaviour during shooting only emphasises more strongly his directorial talents - nothing of this shows in the movie we see.

One comment from another reviewer that I cannot disagree with is the attraction of the "Monroe ass", though personally, I would simply prefer to say that never has the archetypal Edwardian bottom been more provocatively wiggled or more attractively presented in a knock-out design of a dress.

Watch out for excellent supporting performances from two British stage stalwarts: Sybil Thorndike as a delightfully dotty Balkan Dowager Queen and a wonderful characterisation of a, perhaps, not-so-stuffy man from the Foreign Office by Richard Wattis. Skilled actors like these make us believe in the worlds created by the stars and are a delight to watch.

Some movies are made not as great art, but just to entertain. That it does, brilliantly well. Sit back, enjoy and best of all, laugh.

This delicious - and unusually intelligent - comic confection took me completely by surprise when I happened to catch a Sunday night screening on the BBC last month. I've seldom been so captivated by any film, classic or otherwise, and hastened to order a copy of the DVD as soon as the credits rolled.

From first to last, Monroe lights up the screen with her performance as the eponymous showgirl, Elsie Marina. Her warmth and vitality, to say nothing of her radiant beauty, offer the perfect foil to Olivier's flintily Teutonic Prince Regent. A majestic Sybil Thorndike is Oscar-worthy as a laugh-out-loud Queen Dowager and veteran British actor Richard Wattis excels as the starchy Foreign Office representative, Northbrook. Costumes and set designs are positively Beatonesque - which is to say, absolutely magnificent - and Addinsell's light-hearted score is completely charming. I've been humming the waltz theme for weeks now!

As an interesting aside, the scenes in Westminster Abbey incorporate actual footage from the Coronations of George VI and Elizabeth II. Whilst adding considerable verisimilitude to the proceedings, these moving and powerful sequences help 'round out' the film's otherwise irreverent, if always affectionate, portrait of the mores and idiosyncracies of pre-WW1 European royalty.

An enchanting movie. Highly recommended.